Jolene Navarro

In April, I started with The Highlands Games, moved to King Williams Art and Craft Fair during Fiesta in San Antonio and visited the July Jubilee in Leakey Texas during well, July. Watching parades, walking through the booths of arts and craft, listening to local musicians all happens around the food. Smells of grilled burgers, fried bread and cotton candy. Since the beginning of humanity celebrations and festivals have always includes food venders.

 Food on a stick is believed to be one of the first tools used by humans! No matter how far we evolve some things never change. For hundreds of years we have put candied fruit on a stick. Credit for the fall favorite, candied apple on a stick goes to New Jersey.

The Texas State fair claims credit for the invention of the corn dog in the early 1940s, but The Minnesota State Fair says it is theirs.

Either way it opened the flood gates to food on a stick.

Teddy Roosevelt’s quote, “Speak softly and carry a big stick…” comes to mind but I’m pretty sure he didn’t foresee the power of the stick when it came to carnival food. The stick became a perfect design for food vendors at every county and state fair. All the better if dipped in a fry bucket deep with hot grease.
Some of my favorites are served on greasy paper plates.

Wrapping your food of choice in a tortilla might be a Texas thing but it does the trick when it comes to walking and eating. German taco anyone? The strangest tortilla wrapped treat might be the crawsaugaes I saw at the July Jubilee in Leakey.

My all time favorite is green apple snow cones.

What about you? I’m sure I missed some great foods